Reprise, rewritten, updated
| From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things |
Unchained bits, released from the bonds of eternity, flailing and burning their way through the universe, past our eyes, but visible if we but keep eyes wide open, staring outward, staring upward. Sometimes staring slightly off-center of what we want to see. Looking at stars is like that - sometimes you cannot look directly at a star to really see it. Will we see a death of elements, or a burgeoning of life encompassed in light, a changing of matter into energy? Will we see the souls that stars become, the souls of people long gone, long passed from here, now there, so far up there?
I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?
P.B. Shelley
I'm certain souls attach to stars that burn bright, then fade, then fly away and back around in patterns of time too complex to understand, even as we plot and calculate orbits and speed. As meteors, rocks of flame and heat, our souls might cross the sky and blaze the message so quickly bright, "we are never gone, we will never die"; it all occurs within an arena so cold and still and contains spectators of infinity as stars in the field fall apart and spread their own integral elements across an infinite void. The earth tonight, tomorrow night, right now has a front row seat to a phenomenal show.
| As though to breathe were life. |
The 2008 Perseid Meteor Shower
The Perseids are raining again. It's time for the meteor shower that occurs each year and I want to exhort anyone who can see the sky with a modicum of visibility - not too many city lights, no rising full moon - to step outside sometime in the next 48 hours at late twilight or early dawn or the middle of the night. The best indication is that the prime time for viewing in the North American continent will be around 4 AM Pacific time, 7 AM, East coast time.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are.
Two years ago, when I first wrote about the Perseids, the Perseid shower wasn't anticipated to be that spectacular, due the brightness of the moon. This year's Perseid shower, some of which you may have already seen, will be a brighter shower.
These Perseid meteors fly in August because that’s when our planet Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet Swift-Tuttle. Even though this comet is now moving in the outer solar system, the stream of rubble trailing Swift-Tuttle extends for hundreds of millions of kilometers in space.
This comet debris vaporizing in Earth’s atmosphere will light up the heavens with streaking Perseid meteors tonight.
The shower peaks when we pass through the thickest clump of comet dust
Perseid meteors before dawn August 12 and 13
(earthsky.org)
For comparison and an interesting description of why Perseid is Perseid, follow the link below to the Astronomy Picture of the Day site picture from the Perseids shower on August 15, 2005 - (need bandwidth and click on picture to see animation):
Perseid Meteor Shower 2005
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas.
When I was a kid, I could walk to the edge of a cliff near the Pacific Ocean and watch at twilight for falling stars. The setting sun competes with other mysteries of the universe at that time of day, and the reflections from restless waves often battle with opposing lights from space as the horizon glows gold and pale blue and fades. And so, I was not often fortunate to see my favored falling stars. Sometimes there would be the strange and eerie presence of dancing and floating phosphorescence on the water, an anomaly of ocean sea creatures much like green lightning bugs in a swarm hovering over the inky ocean waves, or an aurora on the water. I thought this was the breath of whales when I was young.
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
Meteors and stars and tiny lights that fly across the sky have saved my life. I can look up when I'm most down, and a falling meteor, star or comet debris, even an orbiting satellite - such things have grabbed me by the mental ears and given me a shake. "All you have, and the universe, too." This is not all there is, here on this planet of chance.
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
I have my favorite constellations. The Big Dipper. Some nights, I'll watch the Dipper pour out other stars flung into the galaxy; our worries that have gathered in the concave and tilting cup. [Orion's belt compels me to trace his figure in the darkened sky with an admiring eye and imagine the bearded Hunter on his hunt. I fancy the Milky Way, too, and memories of reading Sendak's "In the Night Kitchen" to my daughters come to mind:
| Milk in the batter!
Milk in the batter!
Stir it! Scrape it!
Make it! Bake it! |
Perseus, the constellation in that point of space from where we say the Perseid meteors spray, is sketched as a figure, sword in one hand, the head of Medusa, dripping, in the other. In this month of August, the earth is bathed in the dust of gods.
I'm no scientist or major astronomy buff; I take a passing interest and every-so-often fleeting obsession in what goes on in space. I'm a regular observer of shuttle launches, a habit left over from growing up on Gemini, and Apollo, Kennedy's drive to put a man on the moon. I understand why JFK looked to the stars for a goal to reach for, succeed at, and best the competition. It wasn't just about getting there first; it was also a lot about comprehending the depth and breadth of what lies beyond our earthbound spinning existence. We are insular creatures without that reach.
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Go out tonight or in the early morning or tomorrow night; look to the east and catch a meteor or two. White blazing light painted with a rapid hand against a dark silk canvas. An extraordinary experience and again, we are in the Night Kitchen.
The same sky on the same planet, and anyone on earth can see. Regardless of the nation, the state, the province, the county, the continent, the lonely boat on the sea. We are all bathed in the dust of gods.
| From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.
P.B. Shelley
|
smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
(excerpts from Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)